


Without You

by peevee



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Compulsion, Getting Together, Kissing, M/M, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Sexual Fantasy, Spanking, There was only one bed!, gratuitous descriptions of scenery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26736625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peevee/pseuds/peevee
Summary: Martin pulls himself away from The Lonely, with a little help.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 16
Kudos: 75





	Without You

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Without You_ by Perfume Genius, which is the most perfect JonMartin song I've ever heard.

_In the mirror  
I can almost find your face  
You know it's been such a long, long time  
Without you_

-

It was dark, when they surfaced from the Institute’s tunnels out onto the pavement. It felt odd, somehow, that it was dark, like things shouldn’t have changed while Martin had been gone, should have hung in stasis to wait for his return. A fat droplet of rain hit Martin’s cheek, and he tipped his head up towards the sky and opened his mouth, just like he used to do when he was little. He hadn’t felt rain in so long. He had no idea how much time he’d spent in The Lonely, but it felt like it could have been years.

“Come on.” Jon pulled at his hand urgently. Police sirens wailed nearby. “We can’t stay here.”

He had a firm grip, and his fingers were warm and slightly clammy. Martin looked at their hands clasped together, marvelling at the way Jon’s fingers looked tangled up with his own. He let himself be tugged off the pavement and across the street. Jon had said he knew the way, hadn’t he? 

They hurried up King’s Road towards the tube as it began to rain harder; Martin was quickly drenched, his good cagoule still hanging in Peter’s office where he’d left it, along with his bag, and - _fuck_ \- his house keys.

“Jon,” he managed, voice cracking a little from disuse, “Jon, I haven’t - my keys! I don’t have anything.”

“We’re going to mine first,” said Jon, not slowing his pace. “We need to - God, you’re soaked!”

“It’s fine,” said Martin. “Let’s just keep moving.”

“Are you sure you don’t want mine?” Jon was already moving to unzip his jacket, and Martin laughed and put his hand out to still him.

“Jon. That won’t fit me. Maybe I could use it as a hat.”

“Oh,” said Jon, halfway unzipped. “Oh, yes, of course.” He zipped back up, frowning at Martin like Martin’s lack of imperviousness to rain was personally offensive to him. “Well, come on then. Let’s get you inside.”

He marched off, Martin’s hand grasped tightly in his own, so Martin had no choice but to trot after him.

-

It was late on a Tuesday evening, so the tube was relatively quiet. They sat beside each other in silence, and Martin stared at their reflections in the dark window opposite as the car swayed gently. Jon looked small and tired, but when Martin turned to glance at him he blinked and smiled a warm little smile, and his fingers squeezed Martin’s gently. 

Jon’s flat was a studio above an all-night bakery in Holloway which smelled deliciously like fresh bread and frying doughnuts. Martin’s stomach made a hopeful sounding growl, but Jon was already ushering him through the door and up the stairs, fussing at him with a towel as Martin stood and blinked and tried to make sense of the newly brightened world around him. 

“Get in the shower,” said Jon brusquely. “I’m going to get some food, then we need to get out of here.”

“What, why? What’s going on?”

“Shower first. Questions afterwards,” said Jon. He was already opening the door and flipping the hood of his coat back up, then it slammed shut and Martin was left clutching the towel and blinking around at all the little Jon-things that were scattered about. A coffee table with a few books on it, and a mug of half-finished tea that was beginning to grow mould. There was no television, but there was a digital radio that connected automatically to Radio 4 when Martin switched it on. Almost all of the surfaces were covered in a fine layer of dust, and there were several large spiderwebs above the kitchen cabinets. When he turned back around to look at the door back through to the hall, there were four deep gouge marks in the wood, spaced evenly.

The bathroom was cramped, but the shower was hot, and Martin scrubbed himself until the room had steamed up and he was pink all over. He didn’t feel _contaminated_ , exactly, but The Lonely had such a pervasive chill about it; if he could only get warm again he thought he might start to feel more normal. 

“Knock knock,” said Jon, instead of actually knocking. He opened the door a tiny sliver, the room so full of steam he wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway. Martin still felt his face heat. 

“Are you almost done?” said Jon. “We need to leave as quickly as possible. I’ll explain everything, but you’ll have to trust me.”

“I… okay,” said Martin. “I trust you.”

“Thank you,” said Jon, sounding relieved. “Thank you, Martin. I, um. I hope the shower is okay? Hot enough? Um.”

“Oh! It’s lovely, thank you! Very, ah. Very warm.”

“Good. Good.” Jon hovered for a second more. 

“Oh!” said Martin. “Um, you might have noticed already, but there are some webs in the kitchen. I can get rid of them, if you like. Sorry, I should have… should have done that, before.”

Jon made a disgusted sound. “Yes, they’ve been rather more persistent lately. I would appreciate that. Thank you.”

“Okay. Out in a sec!” Martin’s voice went too high-pitched, and he kicked himself. He was being weird, wasn’t he? Jon had come to find him. Had held him, had _seen_ him, but that didn’t mean. It didn’t mean anything, or at least, it didn’t necessarily mean what Martin wanted it to mean. He turned the shower off and dripped into the tray for a long moment, trying to clear his head. The feel of Jon’s arms around him was still vivid, the way his breath had ruffled at the hair on Martin’s neck.

He dried off and put his damp clothes back on, then padded back out to find Jon, who was stirring a steaming pan on the stove. 

“Soup,” he said, when Martin approached. “Lentil, if that’s okay?”

“I think everybody on earth likes lentil soup,” said Martin. “Thank you. It smells really good.”

“It’s just Heinz,” said Jon. “Do you want bread? I have some frozen, I think.”

“Just soup is fine. Thank you, Jon.”

They sat at Jon’s tiny breakfast bar and slurped down the soup, until Jon finally set his spoon down with a clink and rubbed at the bridge of his nose behind his glasses.

“Right. So, um, I’m not sure how much you noticed, while we were getting out?”

Martin blinked. His memories of the last few hours were like a series of unconnected polaroid pictures. Fog. Jon’s arms around him. The giving shift of sand under his trainers, then the stone of the institute’s tunnels, wet tarmac, rain on his face.

“I don’t… I don’t think I remember much. Just the tunnels. They were so long, and dark. And the smell. What was that smell, Jon?”

“Before I found you, I was with Basira and Daisy. We found that _thing_. The one that isn’t Sasha. And then Julia Montauk, and Trevor Herbert. Or… they found us, I suppose.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“Basira… I left them. I left them to, to come and get you. Basira said that Daisy -” he paused, swallowed. “She said that Daisy had dealt with them. I don’t know about the Sasha thing. What happened to it, but there was a lot of blood. A _lot_ of blood. 

“Oh, Christ. That was the smell, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. And there were gunshots, and obviously somebody called the police.”

“Shit.” said Martin. “Shit.”

“Quite.”

“So what do we do? We… we run? Hide? _Can_ we hide?”

“From the police, yes. From other things -”

“Elias.”

“Yes, well. I don’t know. Probably not.”

Martin felt a familiar fluttering panic rising up thick in his throat, and he took a deep, shuddering breath to try and shove it back down. It had been so long since his feelings had been this close to the surface that it felt like they might burst free at any moment, no longer held back by the cool, comforting weight of The Lonely’s fog.

“Okay,” he said, breathing through his nose. In, out, in, out. “Okay. Do you have a plan?”

Jon hesitated before he spoke. His eyes darted over Martin’s face, and then his long-fingered hand was sliding over one of Martin’s, warm and soft and gripping him firmly.

“Daisy has a place we can use,” he said, not quite meeting Martin’s eyes. “A safehouse, in Scotland.”

His thumb rubbed against Martin’s, and Martin let his wrist turn to face upwards, so Jon could take hold of his hand properly. The skin of his palm felt hypersensitive, and his stomach forgot to be anxious as it flip-flopped in place with a giddy nervousness instead. 

“A safehouse. Really?”

“She’s got a few, but this one… this one’s the furthest away.”

“Far away sounds good.”

“We can stay there for a few weeks.”

“You think that’s how long it’ll take?”

“I honestly don’t know, Martin. I don’t know anything for certain, except that we shouldn’t stay here.”

“And we need to leave now? Can I get any of my things?”

“Yes, but you won’t have long. We’re getting the train to Inverness in -” he pulled his phone from his back pocket with his free hand and checked the time, “- just under two hours, from King’s Cross. I… Martin. I’m sorry.”

Martin stared at him. “What? Jon, you didn’t cause any of this. _Elias_ is the one who… or Jonah, I suppose. Urgh, that’s so creepy. And then Peter -”

“I know. I know, it’s just… you didn’t ask for this.”

“Well, neither did you!” He squeezed Jon’s hand. “Come on. Let’s get ourselves sorted, we don’t have much time.”

Jon was looking down at their joined hands, and when he looked back up to meet Martin’s eyes, there was something there that Martin had never seen before. An openness, like Jon was laying himself bare for Martin to see. It felt breathlessly intimate, and the air around them thickened with something that felt almost like an electric charge. His hand was still clutched in Jon’s, the only point of contact between them, and Martin suddenly felt desperate with the need to have Jon in his arms again. He stood, and pushed his chair back across the floor with a scraping sound just as the doorbell went off with a loud, harsh buzz.

They both jumped, and Jon leaped up to check his phone again. 

“It’s Basira,” he said with some relief. “She has your things, and your keys. We need to go.”

“Oh, okay. Okay, yes. Have you got stuff?”

“I have a bag packed,” said Jon. He pulled the door open. 

“Here, take it,” said Basira, holding out Martin’s bag and cagoule, as well as a thick brown envelope. She glanced over her shoulder, looking hunted. Her hair was coming free from her scarf in long dark wisps, and there was a splatter of something dark over her jacket. “I have to go, I can’t be seen here.”

“ _Thank you_ , Basira,” said Jon. “I -”

“Don’t say anything,” Basira said fiercely. “Don’t. She’s… she’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” said Jon. He took the envelope and tucked it under his arm, and passed Martin’s things to him. “Okay.”

Basira rummaged for a second in the pocket of her coat, then held out a scrap of paper. “If you need me, contact me on this number.” She darted another look over her shoulder, then finally made eye-contact with them both in turn. “I really have to go. Be safe.”

“You too,” said Martin a little helplessly as she turned and jogged down the stairs, back out into the night.

-

The sky was just beginning to brighten as they pulled away from the platform, the train surprisingly busy for stupid o’clock on a drizzly Wednesday morning. It all felt unreal; the people all around them, the too-bright lights in the carriage, the hushed murmur of early morning conversation. Jon was poking at his phone on the other side of the table and frowning as he squinted at the screen. Martin stared out of the window, watching the blur of red brick and concrete and graffiti become greener as they passed through the suburbs and out into Hertfordshire. The trolley rolled past, and Jon bought them two cups of greyish tea and a mini-pack of jaffa cakes.

“Martin.”

“Hm?”

Martin pulled his gaze from the tracks of rain running down the window and looked at Jon. 

“Are you -” Jon swallowed, his expressive eyebrows drawn together. “Martin, are you okay? I’m sorry, I didn’t ask you. I just…” he laughed humourlessly. “I just sort of dragged you here, didn’t I? I didn’t even think -”

His hands were clasped nervously in front of him, and Martin reached over to take one, finding it dry and warm. He was surprised how easy it felt, to touch Jon casually.

“Jon. I trust you, remember?”

“I know,” said Jon softly. “I know you do.” He opened his mouth, then closed it. Martin waited. “What if I… what if I don’t deserve it?”

“I think I get to decide that, don’t you?” said Martin. “And yes,” he added firmly, “yes, I am okay, actually. Sorry if I seem a bit weird. This is just a lot, you know? After everything.”

Jon did a weird bobbing thing with his head that looked like he was trying to shake it and nod at the same time.

“No, no, you’re not weird! That’s not - I mean. You’re fine.” He wrinkled his nose and gripped Martin’s hand a little more tightly. “Good, I mean. You’re good. Not dead, or a ghost, or… I don’t know. A weird fog monster.”

“Definitely not any of those things. I’m a bit cold, though.”

“Your hands are freezing,” said Jon, but he was smiling. “Drink your tea.”

-

It had stopped raining by the time they reached Inverness, and as they headed further north in a tiny, ancient bus, sunlight began to peek through the clouds and dapple the hillsides prettily. Martin wished he’d packed his notebook somewhere more accessible; ahead of them, a mountain like a giant whaleback loomed, its flanks purple with blooming heather. 

“Oh, it’s beautiful,” he said in wonder, pressing his face close to the window. 

“Hm?” said Jon. He was pretending he hadn’t been asleep, but his eyes were unfocussed and his hair was all sticking up on one side.

“Look, Jon.”

“It’s a mountain.” Jon squinted, then glanced back at Martin warily. “It looks very… mountainous?”

“Wow,” said Martin, ignoring him. “It’s so amazing here. Is this where we’re staying? Somewhere near here, right?”

“I - yes, actually.” He stretched and yawned, his jaw cracking. “I’ll just check with the driver.”

As he stood, the bus chugged with some effort over the rise of a hill, and Martin gasped aloud. The sea stretched ahead of them, disappearing into the horizon miles in the distance. It was dark and huge and it glittered in the late afternoon sunlight, and Martin’s felt a strange feeling well up in him, almost as if a shell around him was beginning to crack. He breathed in deep and tried to contain all the _feelings_ that wanted to burst out of him, after months and months of stasis.

Jon dropped back into the seat beside him.

“Five minutes,” he said, reaching under his seat to grab his bag. “We should pack up.”

“I - okay. Yes. Wow.”

The bus driver dropped them by a little shelter on a grassy strip next to a section of pebble beach. 

“Shop’s that way,” he said, pointing up the road. “Pub’s back in that direction. You folks know where you’re heading?”

“Yes, thank you,” said Jon primly, shouldering his rucksack. “We have a map.”

“Righto,” said the driver.

“Thank you!” said Martin. They waited for the bus to disappear along the road, and when it was gone, they still stood in silence for several long moments. Martin had thought that the sea air might remind him uncomfortably of The Lonely, but the wind whipped pleasingly at his face, and instead of that eerie silence there were sounds of life; gulls calling, waves crashing, pebbles shifting against each other under the weight of the water. He turned to find Jon studying the map. 

“He said the shop was that way,” said Jon, pointing, “so I think we go up here? There should be a track.”

“Okay,” he said, breathing deep. “Okay. Let’s go.”

-

The cottage was… well. Once they’d dusted (Jon) and got rid of the many, many spiderwebs (Martin, while Jon hovered anxiously outside), and set a fire in the blackened little fireplace, it could almost be called cosy. Martin still wasn’t entirely sure that the sofa wasn’t sentient, with the amount of creaking and shifting it seemed to do every time they settled onto it, but it was comfortable enough. The kitchen had an old electric oven and a separate gas hob that was connected to a large red bottle outside; neither of them had any idea how to check how full it was, but it worked, and in Martin’s opinion there were few things that couldn’t be improved by a nice cuppa.

“Did you get sugar at the shop?” said Jon, poking around in a cupboard. 

“Yeah, and pepper and salt. Should all be on that shelf up there, top left. Here, let me.”

The cupboard was up high, and Jon strained on his tiptoes, trying to reach. Martin leaned over him and plucked the packet easily from the back of the shelf.

“Don’t say a word,” said Jon, but his mouth was twitching. Martin didn’t step away as they moved around each other, boiling water and pouring milk, teaspoons clinking. Jon shoveled a generous teaspoon of sugar into his tea then breathed deeply into the mug, his glasses steaming up. 

“Come on.” Martin tugged gently at his sleeve, and they settled in front of the crackling fire. The flames leapt and spat, and Martin was reminded of the way Jon had once described the Desolation: _all of the worst parts of fire, with none of the warmth_. It was so strange how far away that all seemed right now: the Institute, the fears, the rituals. Obviously you couldn’t escape them physically, they were _entities_ , not things, but maybe they were tied to physical places. Maybe the cities were just… epicentres of fear. What was there to be afraid of, out here? Spiders, he supposed, as he spotted a web he hadn’t swept up earlier. The huge, endless sky. The deep, dark of the sea. Loneliness. Martin couldn’t help a soft snort into his tea at that, and Jon looked up at him, questioning. 

“Just woolgathering,” said Martin. Jon made a humming sound and stared back into the fire. Perhaps he was thinking about the Desolation too; his scarred hand was clasped tightly around his mug. Martin let himself look at his familiar profile, features picked out by the firelight. He looked lovely, of course. Martin always thought Jon looked lovely, but he also looked so _tired_. Martin wondered when he’d last slept properly, not just dozed on Scotland’s shoddy public transport system. He realised he had no idea what time it was; it was still mostly light outside, but the nights were shorter this far north, weren’t they? Long, bright summers and dark, lonely winters. 

“Hey,” he said, when Jon had drained his tea and was just staring blankly at the fire. Jon blinked at him slowly. “Shall we sleep?”

“I -” said Jon, glancing out of the window. “Yes. Yes, that’s a good idea.”

It was a small cottage. They’d noticed when they’d arrived, of course, that there was only one bedroom. Only one small bed. Martin hadn’t said anything, and neither had Jon, and now he supposed that they weren’t going to say anything about it at all. He brushed his teeth in the cold little bathroom, shivering now that he was away from the heat of the fire, then stripped down to his boxers and a t-shirt and scrambled under the musty-smelling blankets. Jon followed suit. The bed was too small and the room too chilly to pretend that they were going to stay on their separate sides; Jon wriggled close almost straight away and Martin curled around him, trying to stop his breath from shuddering out too obviously at the press of Jon’s wiry body against his. There was nowhere for his arm to go that was going to be comfortable apart from around Jon’s middle, and he let it hover there for a second, trembling with nerves until Jon made a soft noise and grabbed Martin’s hand with his own, tucking it close in to his warm belly. 

Martin almost sobbed into the back of his neck, but he managed to choke down the wave of emotion that threatened to spill out of him. God, he was pathetic, that such simple touching was undoing him like this, but it was _Jon_. Jon who he’d let himself mourn, Jon who he’d craved every crumb of attention from, then pushed away for months and months. Jon who was making a little contented sound as he squirmed slightly against Martin, getting comfortable. Jon, who’d come for him when he was lost. Martin tightened his arm until it must have been uncomfortable, pressed his face into Jon’s bony spine and breathed. 

-

He woke just before dawn. The bed was a nest of warm blankets, Jon snoring softly against him, but Martin rolled carefully away and crept through to the main room, the stone floor icy cold under his bare feet. He’d grabbed jeans and a jumper from the bedroom, and he pulled them on and shoved his feet into his trainers. Outside, the clear sky began to brighten, the first rays of sun peeking up behind the lumpen hills to the east. Martin opened the front door as quietly as he could and stepped out into the cool air with a shiver. 

Behind the cottage was a steep section of heathery hillside that rose perhaps two or three hundred feet to a rounded top with a small stone cairn. There was a track that looked like it had been made by sheep or deer that zig-zagged up the slope, and Martin tramped up it doggedly, his trainers soon soaked through with early-morning dew, his lungs burning. He reached the top, gasping for breath, and sat heavily in the damp heather. He could see the roof of the cottage below him surrounded by an almost unnaturally bright green where grass had been planted, then beyond: more heather, the sun beginning to pick out purple amongst the dull brown. 

From here, the sea looked like a flat, grey slate. A little boat moved slowly across the horizon as he watched, and Martin thought suddenly of Peter, suspended on the Tundra between fathoms of cold water and miles of heavy air. Peter was dead, he supposed. Or… destroyed, or whatever happened to avatars. Jon had destroyed him. Martin shivered a bit, thinking of it. He could admit to himself that he liked it: the knowledge that Jon would kill for him. That Jon was powerful enough to annihilate someone like Peter with hardly any effort at all. Martin drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, and stared out at the sea for a long time as the rising sun began to warm his back.

“Martin!”

Jon’s voice rang out loud and clear and a bit panicked. Martin shook his head. He had no idea how long he’d been sitting there, but his jeans were soaked through and his feet were mostly numb from the cold even though the sun was warm. 

“Martin! I know I said I wasn’t going to _know_ things, but -" Jon was struggling to pull his feet into a pair of wellies, hopping on one leg as he swore to himself. “Where the hell are you?”

“Jon!” Martin called out, cupping his hands around his mouth. Jon wobbled and almost fell over as he turned to look, and Martin waved from the hilltop. Jon finally wrestled the second welly onto his foot, then he began to trudge up the slope to where Martin sat.

“Hello,” said Martin, when Jon reached him. Jon had that _look_ on his face again, the same one he’d had in the flat before Basira had arrived. It was… Martin didn’t know what to do with it. Neither did Jon, it seemed. 

“I -” he said, “I, uh. I didn’t know where you were.”

“I’m here,” said Martin. He couldn’t stop looking at Jon, at Jon’s face, which still had faint pillow marks pressed into it above his scruffy beard. 

“Yes,” said Jon. His eyes tracked over Martin’s face, then out at the view over the hillside and down towards the sea, which was beginning to shimmer as the sun rose and reflected on its glassy surface. “Oh. Wow.”

“Yup.”

Jon sat down, pressing himself close to Martin’s side. “Sorry,” he said. “I panicked a bit. Stupid of me.”

“It’s not,” said Martin, turning away from the view to look at him again. “It’s not stupid. Sorry for leaving without waking you. I don’t even know why I came up here, really.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“No… I mean, yes. It is, but I think - I think I came up here to watch over you? Like,” he paused and grasped for the words. “Like if I could see where you were, and you were safe, that it would all be okay.”

“Well,” said Jon. “Now you know how I feel all the time.” His mouth tipped up in a little smile, his eyes full of warmth.

“Heh,” said Martin. “Yes, okay. Doesn’t mean I want to be _literally_ watched all the time.”

“I know, I know.”

“I’m just. I’m having a lot of _feelings_ right now, okay? And don’t make fun of me, I’ve been trying very hard not to have them for a long time, so it's, uh. It’s a lot.”

“Okay,” said Jon.

“I thought I might have to… I don’t know. Scream cathartically, or something.”

“Did you?”

“No. I thought it might wake you up.”

“Well, I’m awake now. You could.”

Martin looked down at him, and loved him so much that he ached with it. It was a warm feeling that suffused him so fully and so suddenly that he had to close his eyes for a second. He took Jon’s hand. 

“I think I’m alright now, thanks. Don’t want to disturb the sheep.”

“Okay,” said Jon. They were still looking at each other, and Martin thought he should probably look away, make some comment about the mountains, or the birds, or the damp heather that soaked more into his clothes with every long second that passed. The moment stretched and lengthened beyond any sort of plausible deniability. Jon’s gaze was warm and intense and seemed like it had an almost palpable weight to it. Their hands were still clasped, and the air between them felt like it was thick with potential energy. 

Martin leaned down, cupped Jon’s cheek in his hand, and kissed him. 

_His mouth is so warm_. It was all Martin could think of, as Jon sighed and turned towards him and clutched at Martin’s shoulders. Warm and impossibly soft, his breath a little sour with sleep. Jon made another noise against his mouth, apparently involuntary, and Martin pulled at him to get him closer until Jon was half in his lap and they were pressed against each other so close that Martin could feel Jon’s ribs rise and fall with his breaths.

Jon pulled back, his eyes half-lidded, looking for all the world like a very satisfied cat.

“Martin,” he murmured, and God, that feeling was back in Martin’s throat. The need to shout and scream, or cry, or laugh, or do _something_ to get it all out of him. He kissed Jon again instead, pressing them so close together that Jon laughed against his mouth and squirmed to escape his grip. “Hey,” he said. “I’m here. You don’t have to consume me all at once, you know.”

“God. Sorry,” said Martin. “I wasn’t sure… I didn’t know if this was. If you were -” 

“It is. I am.”

“ _Jon_ ,” said Martin desperately. “God, I… I love you so much.”

“Martin,” Jon said again, this time with such tenderness that Martin felt like his heart was about to break in two. He pressed his face into Jon’s shoulder. One of Jon’s hands slid sweetly into his hair, holding him carefully, and Martin let out a long, shuddering breath into his t-shirt. It was too much, he thought, too much for a body to contain. 

“ _Jon_ ,”he said, suddenly realising that Jon was still only wearing his pyjamas. “You must be freezing.”

“I’m fine. I have a very large blanket,” said Jon, patting his head, but they pulled apart anyway. Jon was still _looking_ at him like Martin was something worth looking at. Worth seeing.

“Are you hungry?” said Jon. “I could make eggs.”

“I… yes. That sounds really good, actually.”

“Come on then,” said Jon, standing and brushing his jammies down with a bit of a grimace. He held his hand out, and Martin took it, and they walked back down to the cottage together. 

-

Over the next week, Martin often found himself just standing and staring at Jon, disbelieving. They were existing in a strange little bubble together, occasionally interrupted by trips to the little post office shop, phone calls to Basira, or Jon holing himself away to consume one of the carefully rationed statements that had been in that brown envelope. Martin walked to the top of the little hill every morning. Sometimes Jon joined him, sometimes he didn’t. They kissed a lot.

Jon liked kissing more than anyone Martin had ever met. He was hungry for them, nosing needily towards Martin as soon as they woke in the morning, rubbing his face into the back of Martin’s neck as he fried bacon or stirred onions in the kitchen, and once, pressing his mouth against Martin’s palm as they sat squashed together in front of the fire. They spent what felt like hours kissing every day, Jon’s soft little tongue curling inside his mouth and leaving Martin breathless, almost unable to believe that he got to have this. He still felt like there was something surrounding him that was about to crack like the thin shell of an egg, and the more time he spent with Jon, the closer it was to all spilling out. 

-

“There’s something bothering you.”

“Aren’t you trying not to _know_ things?”

Jon looked down into his mug of wine. “I haven’t… you’ve just seemed. Not right. You’re not, you know. Getting drawn back in? To The Lonely?”

“No! No, God. I’m not sure that I even could.” He looked up at Jon. “I’m, um -” he took a gulp from his own mug. He knew what it was that he needed, by now. He wasn’t entirely sure he could face asking Jon for it, even though they were… whatever it was they were now. “I’ll work it out,” he said. 

“Martin,” said Jon, and fuck. _Fuck_. He was all over the place, and there was no way he was going to be able to tell Jon, ask Jon -

“Would it help,” Jon said slowly. “If I _asked_?”

Martin clutched his mug tightly. He could feel his face was already pink, and he took a deep breath, and nodded.”

“Alright,” said Jon. “Alright.” He put his wine down and turned to look at Martin. “I want to help,” he said, and his lovely face was so very sincere. “ _Tell me how_.”

“When I first started working at the institute, I had this fantasy,” Martin began, hearing his own voice as if it was coming from someone else. “It was at a school. I was a student, and you were my form teacher. It was one of those big old private schools that’s in some ancient posh castle, where there are still proper uniforms and you call all the teachers ‘Sir’. And you’d get punished, if you misbehaved.

“You were… cruel to me.”

“I -” said Jon, looking stricken. “Martin -”

“You hated me. Mr. Sims did, that is. You punished me for the smallest things; dropping my pencil, coughing too loudly, that sort of stuff. You’d keep me back after class and make me hold out my hands, palm up. You had this wooden ruler that you kept in the top drawer of your desk, and you’d pull that out and look me in the eyes and _crack_ , you’d bring it down on my palm so hard that I couldn’t always help myself from making noise. If I was too loud, you’d give me a few extra. I could see that you enjoyed it. That you liked hurting me, punishing me.”

Martin swallowed, his throat parched suddenly, but the words just wanted to keep coming. Jon’s eyes were wide.

“In the fantasy you’d catch me, after. I’d run back to my room, my palms stinging so badly, my -” He licked his lips and swallowed again against his dry throat. “I would be so hard, afterwards. You were vicious. You hit me so hard that sometimes my hands would bleed. I’d take my cock in my hand and the feel of it against the welts you’d put there would make me cry out. 

“You caught me like that. You burst through the door of my room before I had a chance to hide, to disguise what I was doing, and you whipped the blankets from the bed so that I couldn’t cover myself. You called me… you called me a filthy little slut.” Martin let himself meet Jon’s eyes. His breath was speeding up, and Jon was only looking at him, dark and intense. “You dragged me back to your office,” he said. “You locked the door. You said that I was a vile, depraved little brat, and that I needed to be put in my place once and for all. You shoved me up against your desk and bent me over it, yanked my trousers and my pants down to my ankles, and when I was bare, you opened the desk drawer and brought out that wooden ruler. 

“You made it hurt. God, it hurt so much, Jon. You thrashed me with that thing until I was so exhausted from crying that I couldn’t make any more sounds. My face would be wet with tears, my body on fire, and my mind would be utterly, perfectly blank.”

A rush of static seemed to crest and then fall as Martin finished talking. The fire crackled, and he reached over and took a large gulp of wine while he waited for Jon to say something. 

“You want me to hurt you,” was what Jon finally said. Martin couldn’t read his expression at all, and it made him shiver a little.

“I… um. I think it would help.”

Jon held his gaze, searching, then nodded. “Alright,” he said. “I’m not sure that I can say the things -”

“You don’t. You don’t have to.”

“I’m sorry.”

“God, _please_ don’t be. If we’re going to. If you’re going to do this.”

“I do want to see you like that,” Jon said, and Martin suddenly recognised the odd expression that was on Jon’s face. It was hunger. An avid, greedy sort of look, and it sent a spiking little thrill through Martin. “I think I understand it. There’s something cleansing about pain, isn’t there?”

“Yeah,” Martin said. “Yeah, that’s a good word for it. Cleansing. I’ve, ah. Done it a few times, you know. Before.”

Jon’s expression darkened, and Martin watched as his hand clenched against the fabric of the sofa. “I see,” he said. “Did you want to… now?”

“Uh,” said Martin. He was still trembling with adrenaline after all the things he’d said to Jon, keyed up. His breath shook. It probably wasn’t the best time. 

“Yes,” he found himself saying. “Please.”

“Come here,” said Jon. Martin shuffled over towards him on the sofa, and then hovered, unsure of himself. Jon’s expression softened, and he pulled Martin close for a sweet, slow kiss. 

“I don’t think I packed a ruler,” said Jon, pulling back briefly. “Will my hand do?”

“Um,” said Martin, his thoughts in a thick fog. “Yeah. Yes.” 

Suddenly, he found himself over Jon’s knee, his head hanging a bit awkwardly over the end of the sofa. Oh, _God_ , already? Jon tugged his pyjama bottoms down briskly, and Martin fought down a gasp, but all Jon did was stroke one hand gently back and forth over his arse. He petted it and rubbed it, and Martin almost sobbed out of sheer frustration.

“Jon,” he said, and it wasn’t a whine. It _wasn’t_. Jon shushed him and stroked him, apparently enjoying himself.

“I’ve never done this before,” said Jon. He smacked Martin lightly, then made a pleased sort of noise and did it again. “That’s very satisfying.”

Martin resigned himself to not getting a say in any of this. He let his head drop forwards, his arms and legs going floppy as he gave himself over to whatever Jon wanted to do with him. He lay prone as Jon squeezed and stroked and patted him as he liked, and the only warning he got was Jon leaning forward to murmur _okay?_ before he drew his arm back and spanked Martin _hard_. Martin jumped against his lap and squealed, and Jon struck him again. It wasn’t as immediately painful as it would have been with something hard and wooden, but Jon kept up a steady flurry of blows that soon began to edge into too much, and Martin cried out with every strike.

“You can be as loud as you want,” said Jon. He sounded out of breath but exhilarated. “There’s nobody to hear you. You could scream, if you like.”

“Jon!” he yelped, the _o_ cut in two as Jon landed a particularly vicious blow. His aim was uncanny; each strike seemed calculated to land on the most tender spots, and pain was radiating out now to places he hadn’t even hit. “Jon,” he gritted out again. “I can’t, I can’t -”

Jon paused for a brief moment, and Martin felt a simultaneous spike of relief and fear that he might stop. It was unbearable, it was so fucking nearly unbearable, but he hadn’t reached that place yet. The place where there was nothing but the cradle of his own pain around him.

“You can,” said Jon, a little hesitantly. “Aren’t you going to cry for me?” He followed this with four quick spanks that had Martin beginning to sob into the arm of the sofa. 

“Please,” he said. “Please.”

“You don’t even know what you’re asking for,” said Jon. He spanked Martin again, and now he definitely wasn’t pulling the blows. It was merciless. A normal man would have tired arms by this point, but Martin hadn’t considered what Jon’s healing abilities might mean. How his muscles would never fatigue, his palms wouldn’t begin to sting. It was merciless, and it was unrelenting, and Martin was crying, he was sobbing deep, wracking sobs that shuddered through his body. Every time he thought that surely Jon would stop, surely it was over, more blows came. Everything narrowed to that one point of sensation, and all Martin could focus on was getting through the next hit, and the next one, and the next one. He was still crying, but he didn’t have the breath left to sob and his tears just ran down his face as he whimpered. It was so all-encompassing that he didn’t even notice that Jon had stopped until he was being gathered up and moved, Jon wriggling underneath him and getting his arms around Martin’s back. 

“That’s it, come on,” said Jon. “I think that’s enough.”

Martin lay against him, his head against Jon’s chest. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to move again. He felt strangely heavy, as if he might sink straight through Jon and down, down into the cool earth. His fingertips fizzed with an odd, tingling sensation. 

“How do you feel?” said Jon. He was stroking Martin’s hair softly, and Martin thought it might be the best thing he’d ever felt. He breathed deeply, in then out, then turned his head so he could see Jon.

“Good,” he said thickly. His eyes drifted shut, and he felt Jon’s chest move as if he was laughing.

“Wow. Alright. You feel ‘good’. Very informative, Martin, thank you.”

“Shh. Sarky bastard,” Martin slurred. The fire crackled at his back and Jon tucked his arms around him more tightly. He was almost asleep when Jon shifted until his mouth was close to Martin’s ear.

“Thank you,” he murmured. “I loved seeing you like that.”

With a gigantic effort, Martin hauled his hand up and patted Jon somewhere in the region of his face. “You’re good. You were very good at that,” he said.

“Oh. Good.”

“Mm. Shh.”

“Okay.”

-

He woke to the sound of the front door creaking open, his face pressed uncomfortably into the sofa cushion. His back was aching, and his arse was on fucking _fire_.

“Hello,” said Jon cheerfully, tugging his boots off as he closed the door. He looked pink and windswept, and he held up a plastic bag triumphantly. “I got eggs.”

“Ow?” Martin managed. Jon put the eggs on the table and leaned over the back of the sofa to plant a kiss on top of his head. 

“I did try and get you into bed last night, but you were very insistent.”

“Ugh.”

“Are you…” he trailed off, his hand coming to rest a bit hesitantly on Martin’s shoulder. “Are you okay?.”

Martin sat up with a wince and stretched, his back cracking a bit. The air inside the cottage was chilly, but the day outside looked bright and warm, and his head felt clear for the first time in weeks.

“I’m - I mean. I’m _sore_ ,” and God, his voice was pretty wrecked too; that’d be from all the crying then. “But yeah, I feel good. Thank you, Jon. For understanding.”

Jon bit his lip, then came around and put one knee onto the sofa next to Martin and drew him into a deep kiss.

“I love you,” said Jon roughly. He didn’t leave Martin any time to respond before he was kissing him again. His face was cool from being outside, his hands clenched against Martin’s shoulders, and then he was drawing back, his expression a little wild. 

“Breakfast!” he said.

“Okay,” said Martin, dazed. “Okay.”

“Get dressed, I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

“Okay. Tea and eggs. Then shall we go up the hill together?”

“Yes,” said Jon, as he filled the kettle. “Yes, let’s go up there. Maybe we’ll see a cow.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to anysin for the delightful concept of Mean Teacher!Jon/Student!Martin which will now be living rent free in my head until the end of time <3


End file.
